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Question of a general nature...

Former Member

Hi everyone!

Can anyone tell me about Arduino - will one be enough or will I need several for the project? I want to build an Aquaponics system and want to have it automated in as many areas as possible so: lighting, heating, ventilating, water pumping, heating of water in fish tanks, O2 levels, and fish fidders and some of it need to be time/date related.

I just don't know how much one Arduino board can do and lenght/size of the code (will there be enough memory for it?

 

Big Thanks to anyone wishing to help!

Richie

  • In a previous life, I did a lot of work with pet shops, building out their Aqua. supplies sections, including building out multiple display tanks for their stock. I've been out of that scene for a while, but thinking back on it, I think the Arduino would be a good platform to use for aquarium care/maintenance/monitoring. With the right sensors, you could know pretty quickly if, for instance, the salinity of your marine tank was in the right range.

     

     

    Admittedly, I've only been thinking about this for the past 10 minutes or so, but I think that in a multi-tank arrangement, I'd use one Arduino per tank. That leaves plenty of interfaces to monitor/control things. Also, and probably more important, having one Ardu per tank would allow you to tune the sketch it's running for that one tank only. Oscars have significantly different needs than a Yellow Tang, and I'd hate to lose either fish 'cos I modified the wrong part of the sketch controlling multiple tanks.

     

     

    All that said, I'd recommend that you start very small in learning about the Arduino. The amount of code you'll need to craft will be significant, but unless you've the programming or electronics skills (that the Arduino will help teach you), it can all seem a little overwhelming. So, start small. Don't discount the value of learning how to blink an LED has. It's how I started a few weeks ago, and it's blossomed into a bit of an obsession. image

  • in reply to Former Member

    Thanks for that!

    Just needed to organize my understandind/expectations - back to books now image

    R